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How spades scoring works

In spades, a team that wins at least as many tricks as it bid scores 10 points for each trick it bid, plus 1 point for every extra trick. Those extra tricks are bags, and every 10 bags cost the team 100 points. A team that falls short is set and loses 10 points per trick it bid. Nil is scored on its own: plus or minus 100, or 200 for blind nil.

By Emre Özen, updated October 8, 2026. The rules are the main rules from John McLeod's Spades page on pagat.com, the same ones our online spades game scores with. The calculator below uses the game's own scoring code.

Spades score calculator

Playing with real cards? Pick each player's bid and the tricks they took, add the scores and bags from before the hand, and it works out the hand. "Next hand" carries the new totals over, so you can keep score for a whole game.

Team 1

Player 1

Player 2

Team 2

Player 1

Player 2

The scoring rules

What happenedPoints
Team took at least its bid10 per trick bid
Each trick over the bid (a bag)+1
Team took fewer than its bid (set)Minus 10 per trick bid
Nil, no tricks taken+100
Nil, one or more tricks takenMinus 100
Blind nil made / failed+200 / minus 200
Team's running bag count reaches 10Minus 100 (the count goes down by 10)

The team's bid is the two partners' bids added together. It doesn't matter which partner wins the tricks, with one exception: a player who bid nil. Their tricks never count toward the partner's bid.

Examples

Bid made, with a bag

You bid 3 and your partner bids 2, so your team needs 5. You take 4 and your partner takes 2: that's 6, one over. Score: 50 for the bid plus 1 for the bag, 51.

Set

You bid 4 and your partner bids 3, for 7. You take 2, your partner takes 4. That's 6, one short, so the team is set and loses 70: −70. Nobody scores for the 6 tricks you did take.

A nil that fails

You bid nil and your partner bids 4. You get stuck with 2 tricks and your partner takes 3. Your partner's 3 don't make the bid of 4, and your 2 can't help, so the bid is set: minus 40. The nil failed: minus 100. Your 2 tricks still count as bags: plus 2. Total −138, and 2 bags on the count.

A nil that works, with partner set

You bid nil and take nothing. Your partner bids 5 and takes 4. The nil scores 100 and the set costs 50, for 50. Each part is scored on its own.

The bag penalty

This example comes from pagat. A team on 337 points bids 5. Its score ends in 7, which shows it already has 7 bags. If it takes 7 tricks, it scores 52 and goes to 389 with 9 bags. If it takes 8, it scores 53, but the 3 new bags bring the count to 10, so it also loses 100 and ends on 290. Take 9 and it's 54 minus 100: 291, with 1 bag carried into the next 10.

Questions about scoring

How many bags do teams really take?

In 2,000 games between four of our strong computer players, which bid carefully and try to avoid bags, a team picked up 0.8 bags per hand on average. A game lasted 10.61 hands, and the two teams together lost 100 to bags 0.67 times per game. Teams made their bid 83% of the time. At 0.8 a hand, a team reaches 10 bags in about 13 hands, so in a close game the penalty can decide it.

What happens when both teams pass 500?

The higher score wins (pagat). If the scores are exactly equal, play another hand: that's what Bicycle's rules and Wikipedia say, and what our game does.

Can a score go below zero?

Yes. Sets and failed nils can take a team well below zero. Under pagat's main rules the game still runs to 500. Wikipedia also counts falling to minus 200 as a loss, and pagat lists minus 500 as a variation. Agree on it before you start; our game has minus 200 as a setting.

Do bags count when the bid is set?

A set team took fewer tricks than it bid, so it has no overtricks. The only way a set team picks up bags is from tricks taken by a partner who bid nil, which count as bags whatever happens to the bid.

Are there other ways to score?

Plenty of house rules exist, and pagat lists many of them: nil worth 50, no bag penalty, bonus bids like 10 for 200. The calculator follows pagat's main rules only. The spades rules page lists the common variations.

Want to see it all scored for you? Play a game of spades and the scorecard keeps bids, tricks and bags for both teams as you go.

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